Nearly everyone knows what Star Wars is, but for those few who don't. Star Wars refers to a franchise of movies beginning with a Trilogy in 1977. The franchise is still going on today. The plot focuses on the fight between the Rebel's and the Empire and is one of the best known films in the world.
While we've used some of the ship designs from the Star Wars franchise here we've also used a few other things... Star Wars is one of the few science fiction stories that involves some other-worldly elements similar to magic. Of course, I'm referring to the Force. I wanted to incorporate ideas of magic and the paranormal into my stories as I've always felt that Star Trek had a rather poor representation of the unknown and unexplained. In 45-50 minutes characters could unmask what was really going on.
In Star Wars they often use the force but maintain its mystery (and mysticism). I've always found that refreshing and the idea that with so much technology around there are still some basic concepts in the Universe that are unknown was always nice too.